


Green Heart

by tacroy



Series: unfinished Ghostbusters fic [2]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25798393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tacroy/pseuds/tacroy
Summary: unfinished!Privately, Holtz suspected that Erin and Abby would never have a wedding, because Abby would want to have a massive wedding and Erin would completely refuse to entertain the notion and they would either elope after nine too many shots of Wild Turkey or never marry at all. Not that she had given the prospect serious consideration. Or hacked the security cameras at City Hall just in case the former ever happened.
Relationships: Erin Gilbert/Abby Yates
Series: unfinished Ghostbusters fic [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1871635
Kudos: 3





	Green Heart

Holtzmann’s ex’s sister’s fiancée’s niece refurbished 1950s furniture. “I can get you her number,” Holtz told Abby, after she’d explained why there was an avocado green refrigerator the size of a small rocket in her basement. Holtz sent the number over the group text, along with a couple of Easter Island head emojis, entirely because she could picture Erin waving her phone in Abby’s face and saying, “What does this mean? What does she mean by this, Abby? Is this ‘50s furniture refinisher Pacific Islander? Is this a race thing? Do we need to have a talk with her?” and Abby saying, “Jesus, Erin, take the stick out of your ass already, you know Holtzmann, Christ, do I need to send you two to fucking couples therapy?” And then Erin would splutter about not being part of a couple much less with Holtzmann and Abby would wave her hands and roll her eyes and try really hard not to look super uncomfortable and Patty and Holtz would just watch and watch and watch.

“Realistically, how long do you think it’s gonna take them to get together?” Patty said while she and Holtz watched them bicker over pizza.

“Centuries,” said Holtz, flicking Canadian bacon off of her slice. “Eons from now, when the moon at last collides with the Earth, their gravestones are gonna hump.”

“Gross,” said Patty. “You right, though.” She chewed thoughtfully as Erin threw a beaker of hydrochloric acid at Abby. “Maybe we should be proactive about this, so it doesn’t take that long, and I can be a flower girl or some shit at their wedding.”

Privately, Holtz suspected that Erin and Abby would never have a wedding, because Abby would want to have a massive wedding and Erin would completely refuse to entertain the notion and they would either elope after nine too many shots of Wild Turkey or never marry at all. Not that she had given the prospect serious consideration. Or hacked the security cameras at City Hall just in case the former ever happened.

Abby dumped a tub of sodium bicarbonate on the floor, which was smoking pointedly. “What could we do, though?” said Holtz. Erin, apologizing profusely, started putting all of the beakers away while Abby yelled at her.

“Are you saying you don’t have ideas?” Patty said. “I have plenty of ideas. They’re terrible, because I don’t know nothing about getting two people together. Much less two  _ girls _ together. That’s your specialty.”

“Yeah, because I enter purposefully into all of my relationships,” Holtz said. “I told you about Irina. I had no idea she was a spy. Or a vegan.”

“Maybe you could hit on one of them and get the other one jealous and then make them talk about their feelings and shit and then, you know,” Patty made a couple of obscene gestures. “Fucking.”

“That is the greatest idea ever,” said Holtz. She felt her whole body light up at the thought.

“You get the scariest looks, girl,” said Patty, shaking her head. “I am so afraid and also so intrigued.”

=

Abby and Erin loved the Fifties aesthetic because, according to them, the best ghost stories were from that time. “The men had PTSD, the women were repressed, and the children were horny,” said Abby. “Lots of fucked up families. Especially in the Midwest. We’ve got to go out to Iowa some time.”

Erin said, “That’s a very vulgar way to put it, but—she’s right. There was a lot of fucked up stuff going on during the Fifties.”

“I just said that.”

“I was agreeing with you!”

“Well, your tone made it sound like you were about to add something bigger on to my point that would  _ eclipse _ my point and it really bothers me when you do that.”

“Get over yourself. I saved your life!”

“You owed me! You abandoned me for years after we were about to start a glorious scientific career together!”

“I wouldn’t jump into the afterlife for someone I owed a simple debt to! I cared about you, you bitch!”

It went downhill from there, and ended up with Abby angrily buying five of the largest, ugliest desks the furniture refurbisher had to offer, and having them delivered at 6 AM, when she knew for a fact that only Erin would be at the firehouse. The refurbisher’s delivery people refused to go more than five feet into the lab out of “safety concerns,” whatever that meant, so when Holtz rolled in three hours later with a pitcher of nitrogenized iced coffee and breakfast burritos, she fell head over heels over a desk immediately.

Erin popped up from behind a semiconductor like a meerkat. “Holtzmann? Are you okay?”

“Ow,” said Holtz, unpeeling herself from the concrete. “I broke my glasses.” She felt wetness on her cheek, right below her left eye. She squinted and gasped; pain arced over her face and across her nose.

Erin hurried over. Holtz could not believe she hadn’t given up on the heels, but there they were, level with her nose, dusky pink stilettos that matched the polka dots on Erin’s weird skirt suit thing. “You’re bleeding!” Erin gasped. She knelt down in front of Holtz, putting her hand on Holtz’s shoulder. “Don’t get up. You might have a concussion.”

“It’s just this,” Holtz said, pointing to her cheek. “What is it? Is it ice?”

“Ice? What? No, it’s a piece of your glasses. Goodness, it’s bleeding a lot.” Erin put one hand on the base of Holtz’s neck and touched her cheek near the shard with the other. “Don’t move.”

Holtz’s wooziness clarified. Erin’s hand was hot on her neck. Her pulse pumped against Erin’s soft fingers. She smelled mint and musky vanilla, Erin’s toothpaste and fragrance. Erin’s eyelashes were very long and black and she was wearing something shiny and distracting on her lips. She was so small, but the muscles in her calves were taut and lovely as she knelt there, close as a glove, brows knit with concern. Her manicured fingernails pinched together around the end of the shard and plucked it expertly out. Holtz felt a bright pain, then more wetness on her cheek. Erin slapped the wrist of her suit jacket over the cut, the back of her hand resting against Holtz’s nose.

“Disinfectant,” Erin muttered. “Here—” Keeping her wrist on the cut, Erin shrugged the jacket off and pressed it into Holtz’s hands. “Press it. I’ll be right back.” She got up and clicked over to her desk. Holtz watched her dig in a bottom drawer, her deltoids flexing and calming under the thin white shell of a shirt she wore. She pushed her hair out of her face in the same irritated way, as if she couldn’t believe it would dare bother her. A few second later she was back with a plastic first aid kit.

“This is temporary,” she said sternly, slathering Neosporin on a cotton pad. “You are going to sit here and hold this against your cheek while I Google concussion symptoms and then when you feel like you can get up, you need to go wash this immediately. Who knows what is on those glasses of yours.”

“Mercury vapor cured allyl diglycol carbonate, and the frame is iron,” said Holtz. “I made curry last night, so probably some curry too. Also, I’m fine, it’s just a cut. I fell down the stairs yesterday.”

“But you can’t break polycarbonate like this,” Erin said, holding up a shard of the glasses.

“It’s probably the alpha radiation. Beta radiation just won’t do that. It’s better for those long term relationships.” Holtz adjusted herself so she was sitting properly against the desk she’d fallen over and reached for her backpack. “Breakfast burrito? I got soyrizo and hatch in here.”

“How are you thinking about food?” Nonetheless, Erin settled next to her, adjusting her skirt and crossing her ankles primly. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Holtz grinned at her and leaned against her arm. “Baby, you make me feel magical.”

“Okay. You’re fine.” Erin wrestled the backpack out of Holtz’s hands. “You know, I fell into an interdimensional portal a couple of months ago, and it was not nearly as big of a deal."

“Hey, you’re the one making it a big deal. I’m cool. I get stabbed in the face all the time. See?” She dragged a lower eyelid down. “That’s where a muskrat bit me.”

“That’s not being stabbed.”

“They got tiny little needle teeth. Right through the bottom eyelid. Stabbed three times. It was missing a front incisor.”

“Sounds completely true.”

“Hundred percent.”

Abby found them there an hour later, trying to figure out how to move the desks. “Just wait until Kevin gets here and make him do it,” she said, skirting around the desk closest to the door in exactly the way Holtz hadn’t.

“He’s got the week off,” Erin said. “Underwater basket weaving competition.”

“See, I can never tell when you’re joking,” Abby said. “Let’s just rig up a crane.”

They ended up using Holtz’s ghost trap as leverage, after Holtz unplugged all of the power sources from it (Abby: “Is that another miniature reactor? What the fuck, Holtzman? Why do you hate being alive?”). After twenty minutes of shouting and Erin kicking off her heels for better traction, the desks had been shoved into the appropriate corners, which was exactly when Patty came in.

“Way to miss all the fun,” Erin said from her position on top of one of the desks. She had kept her suit jacket off and her white undershirt was damp with sweat. Now she was laying on top of one with her knees bent awkwardly over the edge.

“Hey, nice desks,” said Patty. She dropped a banker’s box on Abby’s desk. “Check it out, I found all the old copies of the  _ Journal of Paranormal Activities. _ Somebody at CUNY was gonna throw them out, but they heard about us and called me up. Totally worth it. There is some freaky shit in here, y’all.”

What probably would have been a semi-productive day quickly derailed into reading anecdotes from unsuccessful ghost hunts out loud to each other while draped over chairs. Abby started crying with laughter after Patty read an article about two hunters who took eleven months to realize the noises they were hearing were each other’s equipment. Holtzmann kept leaving to make prototypes for newer and more dangerous ghost weapons. Erin simply despaired.


End file.
